


Just Finished A Daydream

by plinys



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Alternate Universe - Wizards, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-22
Updated: 2015-04-22
Packaged: 2018-03-25 05:31:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3798562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Do you believe in magic?”</p><p>"Doesn’t everybody?”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Finished A Daydream

**Author's Note:**

> For Gwen who had a very long and epic twitter conversation with me regarding this (and made a tweet so epic that it got favorited by the actor who plays Eggsy's dad)! 
> 
> This was essentially meant to be the prologue of a longer HP au that I'm writing for her, but it got to be 7k long, and it's not /exactly/ a prologue anymore.

His dad dies in the war.

Eggsy’s not sure which war, for the history books never tell him about it and the news won’t be reporting the stories of those fallen.

But he vaguely remembers his father pacing about their living room with worry marring his features (before heading out the door one last time and promising that he’ll be home for Christmas), the stories of unnatural happenings around London (strange men in black coats in the sky that everybody pretends not to have seen), and the man that showed up one afternoon in May to express his sincere apologies for their loss (and press a medal into Eggsy’s hands, just in case he ever needed a favor).

The man had said that the war was over, and that everything would be better now.

Eggsy wouldn’t find out what that war was until years later, when faced with a far more detailed history book than the ones his grade school teachers had given him.

\---

The first bloke his mum dates after his dad dies is absolute shite.

The rest that follow don’t get any better.

He remembers with startling clarity the first time one of them gets fed up with him being underfoot, and raises a hand to hit him out of the way.

His mum presses ice to his swollen cheek later.

“You’re special Eggsy,” his mum had said, brushing the hair back from his face so she could get a better look at his swollen eye, “better than any of them, just like your da, but you’ve got to keep your head down baby, so nobody notices.”

He never understands what she means by that, but he makes all the promises he can until the sad look leaves her face.

She tells him not to get in the way, that when they start getting angry he’s to hide in his room, lock the door, and not come out till she does their special knock.

Eggsy promises to do as he’s told, though he’ll lean against him the door each time they start up again, and try to pretend the next day that he doesn’t notice his mum has a black eye to mirror his own.

\---

The worst of them comes when he’s eleven.

He hadn’t been able to hide this time, he’d been out with friends and came back to the yelling and the sound of breaking glass.

To say that he’d freaked had been an understatement.

He’d just meant to push the bloke away, to get him to let go, the next thing he knew the man was pushed to the other side of the room, knocking through the glass coffee table without Eggsy ever actually having laid a hand on him.

Eggsy runs before he can think of anything else, scared for his life.

Remembering the way his mum had always called him _special_ as he hurried down the steps, away from home, away from anybody that could hurt him.

It takes him nearly an hour hiding in some dark alley miles away from home, before he remembers the medal around his neck and the number he’s just supposed to use for emergencies.

His fingers fumble over the buttons of the payphone, his voice a near panic as he frantically tells the woman on the other end of the line, “me mum told me to call this in an emergency, and I think this is an emergency-“ he’s still rambling into the phone, panicked and trying to explain everything when there’s a knock at the glass door of the phone booth.

And he turns to meet the soft and kind gaze of a man he’d seen years before.

It’s weird how easy it is to trust this strange man.

\---

They’re getting drinks an hour later (or well Eggsy’s got water but he’s pretty sure the fancy man’s drinking) at some sort of pub filled with colorful characters, when the man – Harry – finally brings up his point.

“Eggsy Unwin, has anyone ever told you how special you are?”

“Me mum mentioned it,” he says, fidgeting a bit as he tries to take in all the sights before him.

He’s pretty sure the pictures in the newspaper are moving, and there’s an owl perched on one of the other tables – Eggsy hasn’t yet written this all off as some sort of weird dream.

“Has she explained exactly what that means?”

That catches Eggsy’s attention and he turns back to the man with a curious glance, “this have something to do with the whole,” he raises his hands and wiggles his fingers hoping that explains what he means.

The little smile he gets in return means that his message must get across.

“Do you believe in magic?”

He shrugs his shoulders at that and replies, “doesn’t everybody?”

\---

He’s a wizard.

This isn’t a joke.

He’s an actual _fucking_ wizard.

“Language, Eggsy,” Harry tuts from his side, his arms heaped with Eggsy’s school books – books that had been graciously bought for him by his savior - books that he needed for _wizard_ school.

And the whole _being a wizard_ thing is so great that Eggsy can’t even be bothered with Harry nitpicking at the way he speaks.

“This isn’t a dream, yeah?”

“Not like time I checked.”

“It’s fucking incredible.”

“Eggsy, _language_.”

\---

He can’t go home to tell his mum, no matter how much he wants to – because apparently wizards have to go to special wizard schools to learn how to control their magic, and the whole thing makes him feel like shite.

“Can’t I just call her, tell her I’m not dead somewhere,” Eggsy asks, taking a longing look out the window of the pub – the Leaky Cauldron – where Eggsy had been staying.

He can see the normal London out one set of windows, and the wizarding center known as Diagon Alley outside the other, and as great as this whole magic thing is he still misses his mum.

The worst part is, he knows he’s special now, and he knows he could protect her, if only Harry would let him go and do something about it.

“I promise I will look into things for you while you’re at school,” Harry tries to reassure him.

But the reassurance is a weak one.

Eggsy’s used to adults lying to him at this point.

Why should Harry be any different?

\---

For all the hype he’d made up in his head about magical school expectations are a little less than he would have hoped for.

The castle they’re all shuffled off to seems to be under a bit of repair, the place seems worn down by dignity and horrors that Eggsy’s never had to see, and he doesn’t make too many friends at first.

The hat they place on his head calls off _“Hufflepuff”_ and Eggsy gets into a practice of tying the yellow and black tie around his neck with a knot that’s easy enough to undo in case he gets into a fight.

He gets more black eyes during his first few months at his wizard school than he has from any of his mum’s boyfriends before.

Though he never rats out who it is that he fights with, because he’s got a little bit of honor and that means keeping his lips tight – every time he gets called up into Head Master Merlin’s office, he keeps insisting that he just fell, until finally the head master stops bothering to call him in.

He ends up in the nurse’s office so often that she knows him by name, and jokes that if he keeps this up he might one day find himself learning to become a healer, that way he can put himself back together again.

\---

Everyone goes home for Christmas except Eggsy.

The worst part is he wants to go home, he wants to check on how his mum’s doing, make sure she’s okay and they won’t let him go.

Harry’s standing outside the door, like a stern parent, the second Eggsy tries to leave for the holidays.

“It would be best if you stay at Hogwarts this holiday,” Harry tells him, in this soft tone, like he’s doing Eggsy some sort of favor by making him stay home. “Perhaps next year, it will be safe for you to return there, but for now you’ll remain at Hogwarts.

He causes a scene, just a little bit, telling Harry, “you can’t make me stay here,” loudly enough that multiple heads turn in their direction, “you’re not the boss of me.”

“I’m afraid, you’ll find that I actually am.”

\---

He ends up in the trophy room at the school, because he’s all alone and everything is awful, and he wants somewhere to hide where the few professors and students that have remained behind won’t be able to find him.

They all saw the incident at the start of break and it meant that most of them were avoiding him anyways, other than the weird looks they would shoot his way every once in a while, nobody wanted anything to do with him.

Hiding out among a bunch of shiny cups seems like the best solution to get away from all of that.

It’s there that he finds a trophy from some Quidditch match of years gone past, with his last name carved into the medal.

 _Lee Unwin_ – Gryffindor Keeper.

He’d known his dad was a wizard, knew he had to get his magical gifts from somebody, but it’s different now.

For some reason he had imagined, no _hoped -_ that his dad would have been a Hufflepuff too, because at least then they would have had something in common other than just the whole wizard thing.

Seeing this instead was a bit like a slap to the face.

And suddenly he wanted to run more than ever, to get away from all this magic nonsense.

So he does.

He’d always been good at sneaking out, and in his spare time between classes and getting in fights with those Slytherin jerks that would remain unnamed, he had learned the ever changing map of the castle by heart.

Getting out was the easy part.

Getting out without getting caught was not so easy.

\---

He’d made it to Hogsmeade that first time, before a crack of sound filled the air and suddenly two feet away from him the displeased figure of one Harry Hart appeared.

“Eggsy, you can’t just run away whenever things get tough.”

“Fuck you,” he says, with all the anger an eleven year old can muster, “I fucking hate you, this is all your fault.”

It’s the first and only time he’ll say those words, and he’s hitting at Harry’s chest trying to push him away as he says the, so he misses the expression that crosses the man’s face. The look of regret was so profound that had Eggsy seen him it no doubt would have haunted him for years to come.

Though it would take just as many years for Eggsy to see it again, as he would watch Harry explain what had happened that day.

\---

“Promise me you won’t run off again.”

“I’m not making a promise I won’t keep.”

Harry doesn’t even look disappointed at his words, he just nods his head in quiet acceptance, before changing his request, “then know this Eggsy, every time you run away, I will be there to find you and bring you back.”

\---

“I got no friends,” Eggsy tells him, his fingers pressing up against the mug of butterbeer for warmth, “even the other puff’s don’t like me, figure its ‘cause I’m more street kid then the rest of ‘em.”

“Now I’m sure that’s not true-“

“Then there’s those fucking snakes,” he continues, “now I ain’t gonna name no names, cause I don’t want you ratting ‘em out to Merlin, but they’re evil the lot of ‘em. The fucking worst people I ever met, and that’s saying something Harry, ‘cause I know some shite people.”

Harry lets him finish his rant, not trying to interrupt again, just sipping at his own drink with this calm maturity, a look that Eggsy will never stop being envious of.

“Did you know when I was at Hogwarts, I was sorted into Slytherin?”

That can’t be right.

Sure, Harry can be a jerk sometimes but he’s not _evil_.

“You’re joking, yeah?”

“Not at all, dear boy,” Harry assures him, “if you ever end up back in that trophy room do take a look for my name. I’m in there at least once, if memory serves.”

“But that doesn’t make no sense.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re not _evil_.”

Harry’s sigh is patient, if nothing else, “not everyone is as they initially seem to be.”

“I’m pretty sure Charlie’s a prick, Harry, ain’t nothing you say gonna change that.”

“No, probably not,” he agrees, “however, that does not mean that everyone from a house different than yours will be a _prick_.”

It’s weird hearing Harry curse – sure he’s heard adults do that before, the past few years with his mum has shown him more than enough of that - but this is different because it’s _Harry_.

“Yeah, okay, whatever you say.”

\---

Harry’s not entirely wrong.

Two weeks into the New Year he meets Roxanne “Call me, Roxy” Morton – otherwise known as the coolest Slytherin he’s ever met.

Not counting Harry, of course.

She punches one of Charlie’s goons (Digby) in the face, and teaches Eggsy how to block instead of just taking the hits like he’s used to.

They spend too many hours in hidden away classrooms practicing spells they aren’t old enough to know, and rough muggle brawling moves, until he stood a chance at fighting back.

And as his first year wraps to a close he begins to think maybe this wizard stuff isn’t so bad after all.

Then, he goes home for the summer.

\---

“What’s the point of magic if I can’t use it,” he says, yelling at Harry, because he’s been home for a week –a _week_ – and already he’s getting a lecture and being told that it might be best if he stays at the Leaky Cauldron again this summer.

“It is important that muggles do not know about our world.”

“So, I’m just supposed to let that arsehole hit me mum?”

“Given the circumstances, there isn’t much else you can do.”

“I could fucking hex him,” Eggsy insists, “that’s the point of magic, ain’t it?”

“The point of magic is to help people, Eggsy, not to hurt them.”

“I’m _protecting_ her.”

“You’re doing more harm than good, you need to understand that-“

He pulls the wand out of his pocket, and shoves the offending piece of wood at Harry, as if getting it away from him will change things.

“If I can’t help me mum, then I don’t want any of this wizard shite, yeah?”

And with those last words he runs away, through a crowd of muggles, because he knows here Harry can’t do that thing where he magically appears – not where other people can see, he’s got rules to follow.

\---

He meets Jamal and Ryan that summer.

They’re great, and normal, and they do kid stuff together.

With their help he steals a pack of smokes from a liquor store down the corner, and thinks he’s just imagining it, when the pack moves towards his fingers ever so slightly.

He’s twelve years old that summer, and he gets a reputation for being quick with his fingers.

“You’re fucking special,” Jamal says, fumbling with the lighter he stole from his older brother.

“Course I am.”

\---

When August comes to an end, he tries to pretend he doesn’t see the package that gets dropped off through his open window – the wand he had tossed at Harry months before and a ticket for platform nine and three-quarters.

He tries to pretend he isn’t going to go back, that he’s made his decision to be normaly, and that he’s sticking with it.

But his mum’s doing better right now, there’s no boyfriend around to mess everything up and hurt her, and Eggsy gets this idea into his head that everything’s going to be alright.

So he gets on the train again, sits in a compartment with Roxy, and listens as she tells him about her summer – she spent it in France with her Uncle Percival and had seen some of the most amazing sights.

But when she turns the question to him, asking if he’d gotten into any adventures of his own, Eggsy shrugged his shoulders and said, “nothing too exciting.”

Though it’s hardly true.

\---

His second year he discovers Quidditch, takes to it with an ease of somebody meant to be living on a broomstick.

The Captain of the Hufflepuff team asks him he played much back home, before he came to school.

And Eggsy lies, because it’s easier that saying that he’d never given the game much thought and that he still barely has a clue what he’s doing – but this all seems so natural, like second nature really.

The morning after he becomes the second beater for the Hufflepuff Quidditch team, the latest model of broom arrives at the great hall for him. It’s a beautiful thing, the sort of broom that makes half the hall jealous of him.

He knows exactly who it came from, who it _had_ to have come from, but he refuses he acknowledge it by sending a thank you letter

Hufflepuff wins the House Cup that year, and their Quidditch team goes undefeated.

Eggsy does his best to pretend that he doesn’t spend every match searching the crowd of visitors for one particular familiar face.

\---

He doesn’t try to run away that year.

He doesn’t even want to.

\---

He’s thirteen the summer his mum brings Dean home.

Dean’s nice at first, treats his mum better than some of the others, and brings Eggsy sweet snacks from time to time.

He thinks that their luck might be turning around, that things might be getting better.

That feeling only lasts so long.

\---

His third year brings some good things, like Care of Magical Creatures, but there’s bad things as well.

He spends the winter holidays his third year with Roxy’s family – there’s a letter from his mum right before break, insisting that it would be better if he stayed at school this year, and it’s odd enough to get a letter from his mum that he doesn’t even know where to begin questioning things.

But when Roxy sees his sad face and asks if he’d like to stay with her and her Uncle – their Transfiguration Professor – he can’t bring himself to turn her down.

It’s better than staying locked up in the castle on his own.

And it’s sort of nice in a weird way, the Morton house is big and airy from disuse, there’s plastic sheets over most the furniture, which he spends the first day of break helping Roxy pull back so that they have somewhere comfortable to sit.

The whole place is filled with magic, so much that it seems to be bursting with it – pots and pans that wash themselves, book shelves that move and shift like the stairs at Hogwarts, and gardens filled with plants he hasn’t even seen in their Herbology class.

They spend much of the break flying around on brooms in the backyard and gossiping about their schoolmates.

Though the most interesting thing of all, is when they’re sitting in the library and Roxy reaches for a book, a spell sliding from her lips easily, before the book comes to rest in her hands.

“How’d you do that?”

His eyes dart between the bookshelf, Roxy’s hand, and the doorway where he imagines at any second somebody from the ministry will show up with a lecture on using magic underage.

“I just used an accio spell, we covered it in charms, if you had paid attention-“

“No, not that, I know that,” he insists stubbornly, “but the magic, how come nobody’s come round to get you in trouble?”

“Oh, that’s cause we’re at Uncle Percival’s house,” Roxy explains, “you only get in trouble if you use magic around muggles.”

“Guess that makes sense...”

“Though, I’ve been doing some reading, and I think there’s a way to break the tracker they put on us underage wizards,” she continues, voice dropping into a hush whisper, “I’ve been working on the specifics of it, but I’ve had nobody to test it out on.”

“Test it on me,” he says, nearly tempted to beg.

Roxy’s smile in return is the greatest thing he’s seen in months.

\---

There’s this New Year’s Party that Roxy’s Uncle drags them to.

Some fancy thing, full on Ritz, a bunch of pureblood gits that look down on him when they think he’s not looking.

Charlie’s there talking with his parents, and an older man that Roxy points out as the minister of magic, in an awed voice.

He doesn’t look like much, just some fancy old man, who certainly doesn’t approve of Eggsy’s presence.

Eggsy’s really quite surprised when the minister eventually comes and talks to him, the glasses on his face making his eyes look larger than normal.

“You’re Mr. Hart’s young ward, are you not?”

He knows he ought to say something polite, be on his best behavior on account of talking to the minister and all but, he can’t find it in him to pretend to be civil anymore.

So he says, “what’s it to you,” with the best attempt at his mum’s boyfriend’s chav accent that he can manage, just to watch the way the minister’s features scrunch up in disgust – before he runs.

There ain’t really anywhere to run, other than to the gardens of whoever’s fancy house they’re staying at, but he does that much – puts some distance between himself and the party going on behind the closed doors of the ballroom.

Eggsy’s not surprised in the slightest when he hears the telltale sounds of somebody else walking through the gardens, somehow heading right towards his hiding space.

“Go away, Rox.”

“I’m not Miss Morton,” the person coming up says, and Eggsy knows that voice anywhere.

He’s pretty sure it being Harry that finds him makes all of this worse.

They don’t say much, as Harry settles onto the other end of the stone bench that Eggsy had made his perch. In fact they don’t say much at all for a very long time, until Eggsy finally gives in, and stops closing in on himself, so that he can lean ever so slightly against his shoulder.

In the end, all he really manages to mumble is, “thanks for the broom.”

“You’re very welcome, my boy.”

\---

Harry shows up to one of his Quidditch matches this year, and he makes to hit the bludger extra hard and knock Charlie from his broom, just so he can see Harry’s reaction.

It’s entirely worth it.

“You’re quite a skilled Qudditch player,” Harry tells him, and there’s a hint of pride in his voice, the tone makes Eggsy feel just as proud.

“Professor Lancelot thinks I might be able to make it pro after I finish at Hogwarts.”

“I dare say he might be right.”

\---

For all the fun he’s had at school, going home is a splash to the face.

The magical world is great and all but the _real_ world is shit.

His mum’s got bruises on her arms that she insists come from falling down the stairs.

But he knows she ain’t no klutz, and he’s used that excuse before too many times.

“You can tell me anything, you know that right, mum.”

“Course I do, baby.”

\---

He steals a knife, and keeps it under his pillow.

Just in case, since they won’t let him use his wand.

He shows up for the train his fourth year with a split eyebrow and a black eye, and ends up letting Roxy press make up to his cheek on the train ride in so he can at least pretend to look presentable for this year’s feast and sorting.

\---

Things are normal that year, as normal as they can get and he knows it’s the calm before the fucking storm.

He can feel it brewing in his veins, while everything continues on around him at normal; he knows this is the time things are going to change.

Over winter break he casts a minor hex, nothing important, nothing that would get him noticed, just unlocking the door because he’s forgotten his keys.

When he goes out to grab coffee the following morning, he finds Harry sitting down at one of the tables, somehow managing to look disapproving behind the covers of his _muggle_ newspaper.

“Don’t even start,” Eggsy says, as he settles down across from the other man.

“I wish I didn’t have to, but there are rules,” Harry reminds him, “if you break them again, the ministry will be forced to call you in front of a council for disciplinary action and I would rather not have that-“

“Why cause it’d make you look bad?”

“Eggsy, this isn’t about me.”

“Except it fucking is, yeah,” Eggsy says, glaring at Harry with all the force he can manage, “I’m the charity case you took on, the kid of some old war buddy or whatever the fuck excuse you wanna make, but the only reason you care what happens to me if cause if I fuck up it makes you look like shite. Like the idiot to thought some kid from the bad side of town could really make it in this world.”

“Eggsy.”

“Look me in the eyes and tell me it’s not true.”

Harry does at least look him in the eyes, but he doesn’t tell him he’s not true.

“I will admit a small part of this has to do with that-“

He groans, not letting Harry finish the sentence.

“Just fuck off, please,” Eggsy says, “I’ll be good, alright? You can take my fucking wand till I get back to school if that makes any fucking difference, but just leave me the fuck alone. I know what I’m doing.”

“I’m not so sure you do,” Harry replies, but he rises from his chair smoothly and tucks the paper under his arm, before picking up his umbrella, “still, have a good holiday, Eggsy.”

“Yeah, whatever.”

\---

They start talking about careers at school – even though Eggsy’s already got his heart set on Quidditch, and last time he checked Roxy was determined to become an auror at any cost necessary – he lets Roxy drag him to all the talks on their different career options.

Sometimes it’s the professors giving the talks, the basic rundown on information. Statistics and the summary of what classes they will need to take to have a chance in the field.

And then there’s the other ones, the ones where somebody who actually works the job shows up, those are the most exciting.

There’s the report from the Daily Prophet with his dark skin and bright white teeth who says journalism is one of the “best jobs in the motherfucking world,” in a wonky American Accent.

An esteemed naturalist who had apparently been a former professor, and spoke of traveling around the globe in search of magical creatures.

Though the most exciting of them all is the head of the aurors office – Harry Hart.

He knew Harry was an auror, it had been mentioned once or twice when he was younger, but he was older now – his fifteenth birthday just past - and it was suddenly dawning on him what an impressive figure Harry was.  

It was a bit hard to realize that he sort of had a thing for the guy that had been his reluctant mentor and sponsor the past few years. Even worse to realize it, when he considered that their last conversation had been an unpleasant one and that Eggsy had been a right arse.

Silently as he watched Harry’s talked, he vows to himself to have a talk with Harry when it’s all done and explain things, apologize for being a smartass before, and make sure not to mention the way all of the blood seemed to rush from his head as Harry continued to talked.

(Damn his teenage hormones.)

For now though he had done his best to listen as Harry regaled them with tales of one of his missions, one that Eggsy had heard before, and he whispered the punch line under his breath minutes before Harry arrived at his own conclusion must to Roxy’s displeasure.

A displeasure which she loudly expressed after the meeting had ended, loudly enough that it was impossible for them not to be heard.

“Of course, _Eggy_ , knew the story – he’s got Hart as his sugar daddy,” Charlie says, his lips twisting into this smug look of disgust, “tell me, Eggy, did he shag you before the talk or are you waiting around after for that?”

“You shut the fuck up,” Eggsy hisses, because it’s one thing to insult him, but another thing to insult Harry.

“I’ve always wondered how old you were the first time? Did you blow him as thanks after buying your textbooks or-“

Punching Charlie to shut him up seems like a good idea at the time, fists were faster than hexes.

He just forgot about the fact that they were standing outside the lecture hall with plenty of people around, focusing only on the way the crowd of them started chanting _fight_ right as Charlie remembers to fight back.

Eggsy manages to land a few decent hits, and the wanker’s going to have a black eye for the next week at least, when it all cuts off at once, the sound of their Head Master’s less than pleased voice cutting through the chants, “would somebody like to tell me what the meaning of this is?”

And he could explain it all right then, but there’s Harry standing right behind Merlin’s shoulder, and he can’t handle hearing Charlie’s words again – not here, not where Harry would hear them too.

So he lies and says, “it’s my fault,” and is forced to watch the disappointed look settled on Harry’s face in return, “Charlie was picking at Rox, so I decked him.”

“Even though I told him I could take care of myself,” Roxy jumps in backing him up, because she’s a good mate.

And Charlie’s got a split lip and no will to share any information.

Though they do get Merlin’s disapproving, “is that how you’re going to tell it,” before he gives them all detention.

\---

He manages to get his talk with Harry after that, even though it’s not how he would have liked this talk to go.

“I thought you had stopped fighting with other students,” Harry says, breaking the silence that had settled between them since their drinks had arrived.

Eggsy takes a sip of his, hissing as it burns the cut in his lip before answering, “I lied to Merlin.”

“I figured.”

“I didn’t want to,” he starts then stops, wishing he could discern more from Harry’s stern expression, “You don’t know what Charlie said-”

“About Miss Morton?”

“About you.”

Harry’s mask is normally unreadable, but for a second there he sees a crack, and Eggsy wishes he could undo the damage, because no matter how much he’s yelled at the other man and told him that he hated him or all of this – somehow seeing that expression made everything worse.

The response Harry gives is careful and sounds almost impersonal, but Eggsy knows better, “what did he say?”

“It’s going to sound fucking stupid okay, and I know it’s just Charlie being shite, but he made some implications and-“

“Eggsy get to the point.”

He grimaces, but he manages to get out, “he called you my sugar daddy,” the words feeling awkward on his tongue, “and so I decked him.”

There’s a long moment where Harry doesn’t say anything, and the urge to run is so strong that it takes everything in Eggsy’s will power not to push for more information. Not to force some sort of reaction – _any_ sort of reaction – out of Harry.

When he finally does say something it seems like an eternity later, “this is my fault.”

“No, it’s just Charlie being a dick, and fuck him it’s not like-“

“I’m homosexual,” Harry says, right and to the point and catching Eggsy off guard, because that’s not the statement he had expected at all.

He’s not sure what he had expected to say, but _that_ was not it.

“What?”

“It’s well known amongst the wizarding community, that I have no wife and no heirs, and no plan to take on any time soon,” Harry explains, “it had been my hope that in repaying a debt I owed to a lost friend, I might be able to find someone who could inherit my estate, eventually.”

“That’d be why the minister called me your ward then?”

“Yes, precisely,” Harry nods his head.

“But that doesn’t explain why, you know, the rest of that shite?”

“There are people,” Harry continues with a slightly pained expression, “who disapprove of the way I’ve chosen to live my life, your schoolmate is from one of those families. I have heard the rumors that swirl about me, that somebody with my preferences ought not to hold such an esteemed position within the ministry. These things are old news to me, I am sincerely sorry though that this talk made its way to your ears.”

Harry sounds so calm as he explains it all, his voice never wavering, just factual and to the point and if that wasn’t the saddest thing ever then he didn’t know what was.

“That ain’t no bad thing?”

“I wouldn’t mind if you thought less of me for it, or if you would prefer I cease our communications, as you had so kindly informed me before.”

Eggsy grimaced at the memory of their last conversation.

“I’m glad, you’re, you know,” Eggsy insists, “I mean, you’re fit as fuck, and I’m young, but I can still tell that much-“

“Eggsy,” Harry cuts him off, “I want to make this explicitly clear, no matter what your friends implied I have no intentions towards you other than to offer my estate to you upon my passing.”

That was not what he had expected.

And it felt ten times more harsh, than he had been prepared for.

The cool slap of reality was a bit of a bitch.

“They’re not my friends.”

“Eggsy, you know what point I was trying to make,” he insists, “now, I’m certain this is all a lot of information for you to process, but my properties are open to your use should you and Miss Morton ever wish for them, though I’m certain she would prefer to have her parent’s old home given life once more. However, you two will surely have plenty of time to decide this.”

“Wait, what does Rox have to do with this?”

“You two are together, are you not?”

When Eggsy didn’t answer right away – still caught up in the idea that he and Roxy could be considered _together_ by outsiders – Harry continued.

“I’ve spoken extensively with her Uncle in this regards, and we both agree that it will be a good match, and you certainly are close enough that even if either of us disapproved, I doubt I’d have any chance of convincing you two to part.”

Sure, it might have made sense, they did spend an awful lot of time together, but he’d only ever thought of Roxy as a sister.

“And with Miss Morton’s interest in a position within my department, I’m certain that-“

“Harry, shut up.”

He obliges Eggsy, though there are suspicious eyebrows arched in Eggsy’s direction.

“Roxy and I aren’t together.”

“Have you not made your move yet? If you need some advice, I’m afraid I’m rubbish at it, but I could-“

“I don’t want to be with Rox,” Eggsy clarifies, “god, the thought of that is just - _no fucking thanks_ , I love Rox and all, but like a sister, not like that.”

“Eggsy-“

“I mean, if there was anybody I’d want to fuck,” Eggsy says, because this feels a bit like a now or never moment, “I’d rather you than her, ya know?”

He’s never seen Harry look so angry so fast, not in any of the times that they’ve gotten man at each other before.

“I think it’s quite past time for you to head back to your dormitory.”

“Harry-“

“We’ll talk about this later.”

They don’t get a chance to.

\---

The headmaster sentences the five of them to detention, it’s nothing fancy, just sorting files for one of the old professors – but it means being stuck in the same room with Charlie and his goons, and Eggsy can’t stand it.

After the fifth jab about Eggsy being used to being on his knees, he decides that he’s done with all of this, standing up at once, “I have the to use the loo,” he says, quickly, not waiting for Professor Ector’s reply, before hurrying out of the room.

He has no intention of going back there.

Instead he runs through the halls like his life depends on it, heading to the grounds and breaking for the fence line that he knows will be there.

He waits in a pub for Harry to appear – because that’s what Harry does, he shows up when Eggsy runs away and makes him fix things.

But this time Harry doesn’t show up, and well, Eggsy knows a refusal well enough.

\---

When he goes home for winter break, he decides to get reckless, pushes his magic to the limits where he won’t get caught – fights back against Dean (his fucking step-father now) in any way that he can.

Fights back he gets hit too many times that he can’t do anything other than try to remember how to breathe with cracked ribs.

He’s pretty sure there’s spells to put his ribs but he can’t remember them.

And even if he could, healing himself doesn’t seem worth it when he’ll only break again.

\---

Then comes the car.

It was a dumb idea, but Eggsy was full of dumb ideas – he _lived_ for dumb ideas, and he would probably die for them.

He’d only learned to drive from brief lessons that Jamal or Ryan had tried to give him on his rare breaks, but Eggsy took just as naturally to a car as he did a broom. The stolen sports car moves under his hands with ease.

Recklessness could only take him so far.

“Six months,” the probation officer said, “it’d be eighteen if you weren’t a minor, but we could cut that in half if you give up the names of the people who were with you.”

“I ain’t a fucking sellout.”

“There’s no honor amongst thieves, Mr. Unwin.”

“Fuck off.”

The officer stands up, and says, “you get a phone call, you might as well call your mum and tell her you’ll be late for dinner.”

It’s only once he’s alone staring at the phone that he thinks about it – the number on the medal he’s always worn around his neck, he knows that  he could call Harry and have this all sorted out, but Harry hadn’t come to get him the last time he ran and maybe it was for the best this way. Eggsy could take a hint, if Harry didn’t want him around then fine.

And if he did, then he’d come bail Eggsy out at some point, right?

He calls his mum, and tries to keep his voice calm as he breaks the news to her.

“It’s only six months, you can pretend I’m at school or-“

“I didn’t want any of this for you, baby.”

“I know, mum, I know.”

\---

He spends the first month imaging that any day now Harry’s show up to set him free.

Harry doesn’t show up.

And Eggsy stops waiting around.

\---

Six months later, there’s somebody waiting for him on the outside, but it’s who he expected.

The pub he gets taken to for his first proper drink is one he’s seen Dean’s gang hanging out at before, and he’s introduced to the lot of them.

“This is my son,” Dean says, pressing a proud hand onto Eggsy’s shoulder, as he introduces him to the gang, “Michelle’s boy – he’s a fuck up - but he’ll be good for us, won’t you, boy?”

He nods his head jerkily, because what choice does he really have.

“Now this fucker, he can steal anything.”

\---

The first time he breaks into somebody’s house for Dean, he comes back home and breaks his wand, because the magic’s gone – that childhood fantasy that he had loved so much is a thing of the past and reality is a cold splash in the face.

Eggsy learns other things instead, little magic tricks that aren’t spells, not exactly.

He’s good at sleight of hand, better than anyone else, because the items he wants to steal have a habit of moving towards his fingers without him putting up much effort.

And then there’s breaking in and out of things, locks are nothing to him – even without a way to channel his magical energy he can open and lock that he wants, the gears on the inside shifting the second his fingers rest upon them.

He spends his seventeenth birthday in a holding cell for petty crime, he breaks out before the officer in charge can come back with from his coffee break.

\---

It gets easier to forget Hogwarts and the people he met there as the years go on.

One time when Eggsy’s doing a drug run with Poodle when he thinks he sees a familiar figure stepping out from a phone booth.

She’s wearing dark black robes, even though it’s nearly spring, with her hair pulled back from her face – and he swears he would recognize that woman anywhere, no matter how many years has passed since the last time he saw her.

He almost yells out her name across the crowded street, but he thinks better of it before the words are off his lips.

Later that night he tries writing out a letter to her, but he’s not even sure where he could find an owl to deliver it.

He ends up crumpling the paper up and throwing it away.

\---

He gets a little sister, the light of the whole fucking world.

She’s about as normal and muggle as they come, but when she smiles up at him, he swears there’s something magical about her.

“I’ll protect you,” he promises, “no matter what, baby girl, you’ve got your big brother looking out for you.”

\---

It’s been about seven years since he’s last used real magic, not just the simple thieving spells, but a real one.

The kind of magic that clears a circle around him, in a public space and draws every muggle eye his way. Weirdly enough his outburst happens in quite the same way his very first had all those years before, arms out stretched to defend and suddenly everything flattening out before him.

“What the fuck,” seems to be the only words able to come to his mind, before he bolts.

 _They_ catch up to him four streets later, tugging him out from the main road into an alleyway, and wearing the fancy Wizard robes embroidered with the sigil of the auror office.

“Mr. Unwin, you’re in violation of several magical codes of conduct regarding the use of magic in front of muggles, if you will willing report to the ministry-“

“Fuck off.”

Clearly not the response either of them had expected, “Mr. Unwin-“

“You fucking wizard cops can go fuck yourselves on those sticks stuck up your arses-“

“We’re called auror’s Mr. Unwin, you know that.”

“Oh do I,” Eggsy replies, jerking his arm out of the grip of the smaller one, “last time I checked I quit that whole magic shite, so if you don’t mind buggering off.”

“I’m afraid we can’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“You’re in violation of several-“

“So what the fuck are you gonna do, put me in _wizard jail._ ”

“You know what fuck it, Eggy, you always were a little bitch-“

The taller of the two pulled back his hood, and Eggsy grinned back at the familiar face, “missed you too, Charlie. The years didn’t make you less of an ugly fucker, that’s a real shame, I figured that-“

“ _Stupefy_.”

\---

When he wakes up from the stunning spells he’s on the cardboard thin bed in a crappy holding cell.

A holding cell in wizard jail.

He’s in fucking _wizard jail_.

Unsurprisingly it’s a bit harder to break out of than his usual, and he has to at least give them kudos for that, if nothing else the ministry has their security covered.

Though Eggsy’s sure that if he really thought about it, find a way out of there. The problem would be getting out of the ministry building after he busted from the cell, which could be more difficult assuming that-

“I wouldn’t try breaking out, if I were you.”

And just like that all thoughts of leaving fly from his head at once, as he sits up from the bed to meet the eyes on the man on the other side of the bars.

There’s a lot of things he wants to say to Harry, he’s planned this conversation in his head far too many times in the past few years, but none of those practiced works come easily to his lips. Instead he just stares at Harry like this might all still be some sort of dream before he says.

“I thought you said you’d find me if I ran away?”

“You can be particularly difficult to find when you set your mind to it.”

“Maybe you should’ve tried harder?”

“I should have.”

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> So, obviously I've got to continue this but the question is. But the question is do I add the next part of the story after this in chapters, or make this part of a series and have the rest of the story show up over there?


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